Antwerp — Koen Dejon­ck­heere, Chief Execu­tive Offi­cer (CEO) of the invest­ment company Gimvcomm­ents on the results of the past year: “The past fiscal year once again demons­tra­tes the successful work of Gimv and its port­fo­lio compa­nies. Our port­fo­lio has grown to an all-time high, and the port­fo­lio compa­nies are report­ing signi­fi­cant increa­ses in sales and profits. Despite the some­ti­mes chal­len­ging and vola­tile econo­mic envi­ron­ment, we were thus able to increase earnings to 112 million euros and the port­fo­lio return by more than 16%. — Our compa­nies are pioneers in a rapidly chan­ging Euro­pean economy.”

Hilde Laga, Chair­man of the Board of Direc­tors of Gimv, adds: “The success of our invest­ment stra­tegy and the strong perfor­mance of our compa­nies were confirmed last year. That is why we are again propo­sing an attrac­tive divi­dend of 2.5 euros per share.”

The results for fiscal year 2018–2019 refer to the conso­li­da­ted figu­res for the report­ing period from April 1, 2018 to March 31, 2019:
— Net result (Group share): 112.1 million euros (or 4.41 euros per share)
— Contin­ued good results of port­fo­lio compa­nies: 10% increase in sales, 14% EBITDA growth
— Port­fo­lio result: 155.3 million euros
— Port­fo­lio return: 16.2% (above the target of 15% for the fifth time in a row)

Invest­ments / divestments:
— Total invest­ments from own balance sheet: 222 million euros in 9 new invest­ments (inclu­ding the invest­ment in Cool­world Rentals alre­ady announ­ced in March and closed at the begin­ning of April 2019)
— Inten­sive buy-and-build stra­tegy at various port­fo­lio compa­nies: 20 add-on acquisitions
— Total proceeds from dispo­sals via own balance sheet: 196.2 million euros

Balance sheet and portfolio:
— Invest­ment port­fo­lio: grows by 12.7% to €1,081.9 million
— Port­fo­lio: Young and promi­sing port­fo­lio of 55 invest­ments, in more than 70% of which invest­ments have been made in the past three years
— Balance sheet total: €1,371.3 million
— Liqui­dity: Cash and cash equi­va­lents decrease by 27.3% to €276.7 million

Equity: Equity (Group share): 1,321.3 million euros (or 52.0 euros per share)

Divi­dend: Stable divi­dend for fiscal 2018–2019: 2.50 euros gross (1.75 euros net) per share (subject to appr­oval by the Annual Gene­ral Meeting on June 26, 2019). As in the previous fiscal year, there will be a pure cash dividend.

About Gimv
Gimv is a Euro­pean invest­ment company with almost 40 years of expe­ri­ence in private equity. The company is listed on Euron­ext Brussels, curr­ently mana­ges around EUR 1.1 billion and curr­ently invests in 55 port­fo­lio compa­nies, which toge­ther realize a turno­ver of more than EUR 2.75 billion and employ 14,000 people.

Gimv iden­ti­fies inno­va­tive, leading compa­nies with high growth poten­tial and supports them on their way to market leader­ship. Each of the four invest­ment plat­forms Connec­ted Consu­mer, Health & Care, Smart Indus­tries and Sustainable Cities is mana­ged by a dedi­ca­ted and compe­tent team, each based in Gimv’s home markets — Bene­lux, France and DACH — and supported by an exten­sive inter­na­tio­nal network of experts. www.gimv.com.